


a place to call home

by prosodiical



Category: Persona 3
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 17:28:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/600312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prosodiical/pseuds/prosodiical
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mitsuru is overworked, Shinjiro is exhausted, and Akihiko wonders when he became the sensible one of of the three.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a place to call home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Wordgawk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wordgawk/gifts).



Akihiko calls him. They barely see each other, despite supposedly living in the same apartment, sharing living space and a bed. He’s been staying in a hotel the last few days, scowling for the cameras, chasing away ambitious fans, managing stupid cooks who barely – mostly – don’t know a thing.

Akihiko calls him, and when Shinjiro picks up he growls, “What.”

“Glad to hear from you too,” Akihiko says. “Been seeing your ugly mug all over the place – “

“Except where it matters,” Shinjiro finishes with a grumble. “I know, I know, cut it out already. You’re turnin’ into a nag.”

He can nearly hear the smile. “Have to be, dealing with your stubborn ass. Get over here.”

Shinjiro closes his eyes for a moment. His schedule for the next few days is busy, but he can probably cancel on most of them, postpone a few reviews. “I’ll see.”

“You better,” Akihiko says. His tone turns serious. “Mitsu’s been overworking again.”

Her and me both, Shinjiro thinks, and sighs. “How bad?”

“Bad,” Akihiko confirms. “Nearly as bad as, well. You know.” He pauses, and Shinjiro can hear his quiet breathing over the line. “I think we need a holiday.”

“What, you too?” Shinjiro asks, half-worried, trying not to sound it.

Akihiko huffs a breath into the phone. “Not so bad. I still get the rookie treatment.” He sighs. “Just… get over here, okay? Take a few days off, I’ll make some calls on this end, see what I can do.”

\--

She comes home from the slew of meetings exhausted, worn like she hasn't felt in years, endless long days piling up like the mounds of paperwork on her desk. It's nearly too much work to get to the apartment, but she keeps her composure until the door closes behind her. "I'm back," she says, out of habit, not expecting a response.

“Welcome back,” Akihiko says. He steps out into the entrance hallway, pulling off oven mitts and leaving them on the side table. He’s wearing a garish apron with ‘Kiss the Cook’ printed on in bold lettering; it isn’t his. Mitsuru feels like protesting something – the apron, the misuse of the table - but he takes her arm and she nearly sags into it out of relief.

“You’re here,” she says, redundantly. She closes her eyes, takes a long, slow breath. With it she smells food – a soft mix of spices in a curry, the sweetness of chocolate, and she feels a pang of hunger that reminds her she hasn’t eaten since last evening. Akihiko leads her through the kitchen, his elbow locked with hers. There’s food simmering on the stove, and she can smell a varied mix of dishes like she hasn’t seen in weeks. “Did you make this?”

There’s a scoff from behind her. Mitsuru turns her head and sees Shinjiro step out from the dining area, brushing his hands against one another, spilling remnants of flour on the floor. “Like he could,” Shinjiro says, and embraces her from behind, burying his face in the hollow of her neck. His hands are leaving flour on her shirt, and she can feel his smile. “Aki’d burn the place down if he tried.”

“I’m not that bad,” Akihiko protests, and Shinjiro raises his head to give him a look Mitsuru knows without seeing. “It was only one time.”

A quiet giddiness is welling up inside her, and she bites her lip on a smile. “Even I am better in the kitchen than you, Akihiko,” she says, and Shinjiro says,

“Damn right,” and Akihiko’s entire face softens as he looks at her, at them. He steps forward and presses their foreheads together for a moment, and she tilts her head up to brush their lips together: a chaste, quiet kiss.

Shinjiro sighs from behind her, a deep, bone-weary sound, and his arms start unwrapping from her waist. “Come on,” he says, “shouldn’t let this go to waste, considering the crap you two’ve probably been eating.”

Akihiko shakes his head, pulling back, and both of them catch her arms and lead her to the dining room. Mitsuru starts to say, “That's an exaggeration,” but the sight of the meal takes her breath away, lovingly laid out on the table, and she loses the words on her tongue.

She manages to maintain her manners, but she’s still stunned at how much more alive a good meal can make her feel. She sets down her chopsticks after a mouthful as she reaches for her glass, and eyes the two over the rim. “So what is this all about?”

They exchange glances she can’t read, a secret language she doesn’t know. “You both needed a break,” Akihiko says, finally. “I convinced Shinji he should come down.”

Mitsuru raises her eyebrows at Shinjiro, who shrugs. “They can manage the place without me for a couple days.” He does look tired, now that she’s paying attention; there’s a heavy weight to his shoulders and dark circles under his eyes.

“I took the liberty of calling you in sick for the rest of the week,” Akihiko says. He smiles unrepentantly when she fixes a glare on him, and she still doesn’t have the energy to act on her implied threat. She sighs and finishes her bowl.

When she places her chopsticks down, Shinjiro catches her arm. He offers her the barest twitch of his mouth into a smile as he draws her into a kiss tasting of cinnamon and chocolate, and she sighs into it, her eyes fluttering closed. It’s Akihiko who presses soft kisses to the place right behind her ear, and she leans into him as hands creep up her shirt to her bra.

She breaks away for air to say, “We’re not doing this here when we have a perfectly appropriate bed,” and manages to fix it with enough authority that both of them look chastened. Or at least, she thinks so until they share a look and Akihiko stands and picks her up, carrying her bridal style in his arms and she lets out an undignified noise. “Akihiko! Put me down right now!” she manages, but he’s nearly laughing and says,

“C’mon, Mitsu,” and he’s already walked them to their bedroom. She spends an endless moment in freefall before landing on the soft mattress and she makes a mental note to exact later revenge.

But it’s put aside as Shinjiro works on her buttons, as Akihiko’s capable hands slide down her stockings, and when she tries to assist she is gently pushed back. “Let us,” Akihiko says earnestly, and Shinjiro snorts a laugh and shakes his head but draws her into an easy kiss.

She hums into his mouth in pleasure as Akihiko’s fingers skim along her thighs, lightly teasing. They break apart to remove her bra and skirt and then everything goes strange and sharp as Akihiko starts using lips and tongue, gentle and unhurried. She falls back onto a warm chest and her eyelids flutter as sparks of feeling run shivers up her spine; Shinjiro runs calloused fingertips across her breasts and sucks a bruise into the hollow of her neck but she can’t muster up the thought to complain, not when – when – 

Mitsuru sees stars, and nearly forgets to breathe.

She comes back to herself a moment later. There’s a warm glow that suffuses her when she looks at them, her boys, that combats the exhaustion that has suddenly overtaken her. When he notices, Akihiko pulls away from Shinjiro’s mouth and kisses her slow and deep. She can taste herself on him.

“Was there anything else our lady requires?” he teases, when they break for breath. Shinjiro is tracing absentminded patterns on her stomach, and he looks up at her when she considers.

“Just,” she says, and can’t find the words, stuck on the tip of her tongue. She waves a hand at them and Shinjiro chuckles. It's a low sound, rumbling, one she can feel reverberating through her where her shoulder meets his chest.

“So eloquent,” he says, mocking, and she hits at him half-heartedly, a movement he dodges by launching himself at Akihiko. They roll around on the bed for a few moments, trying to get the upper hand; near every kiss is a battlefield between them, and she props herself on an elbow to watch them at it, ignoring how her eyelids are starting to droop.

They settle into lazy fondling when Shinjiro pushes Akihiko nearly on top of her, pressed warm and solid against her side. Mitsuru closes her eyes and listens to the sound of their breathing, their movement, Akihiko's heartbeat quickening in time. They break apart after an indeterminable period, after Akihiko's breath exhales in a gasp and Shinjiro swears something so quiet it's almost a whisper, and then she's pulled over and in between them. Surrounded by warmth and content, Mitsuru finally drifts off to sleep.


End file.
